Fourth of July Weekend

July 06, 2026 by Adam in Family

I had three days off work, which was absolutely lovely.  Thursday was pretty rough, with back-to-back meetings and incidents, but I made it to the end and collapsed.  I've tried to put work behind me - Friday was spent puttering hard with video games, personal projects, and a bit of housework.  I finished Resident Evil 4, saving the day a second time after playing the original on a Game Cube long ago.  The slats for the bench are stained and it's partially assembled, but still has quite a bit to go.  My weird little fantasy game with minis continues to grow, entertaining me with the funny little 3d models it makes.

As for the Fourth itself, I picked up mom and we headed to Seraphs for the Creswell parade.  Sitting on the porch with friends and family was the highlight, with the occasional entertainment of a particularly massive truck or row of shiny old cars passing by.  It's always a treat to see Seraph and Jenny, plus one of their friends brought a brand new baby around that was exceptionally cute.

Sunday started with a hearty breakfast - blueberry pancakes with berries that I picked myself.  That and a mocha will sustain my happy breakfast memories for the week.  Pretty soon it turned into a "preparing for the painters" day, moving heavy things near the house, removing storm windows, and seemingly carrying the giant ladder back and forth multiple times.  Eventually we got enough done and decided we were done enough.  I look forward to sitting in front of a computer all day and let me hands and muscles heal from the effort.

Jo leaves for their school on Friday.  I've got to finalize some trip plans soon.  It feels like summer is going to pick up soon.

Pride of Ownership Weekend

June 29, 2026 by Adam in Family

I'm admittedly being cutesy with the title.  Jo and I went to Pride at the fairgrounds on Saturday.  We also did a bunch of home repair tasks.  Pride was fun and we returned with a bunch of swag.  My highlight was seeing the Eugene Fencing Club booth, who encouraged me to come on down.  Jo also knows a ton of people around Eugene through their Wordcrafters and community organizing.

In terms of projects around the house, Jo cleaned up the funky paint job for the sliding glass door.  I think they eventually want to repaint the entire kitchen and started with baby steps.  I got the wood slats for the bench cut and the holes drilled, though I still need to stain and seal before assembling it all.  I look forward to having a bench in the front yard again.  Jo and I also fixed the dining room dimmer switch and I loaded yard debris into the trailer.  The pride of ownership is never ending.

I've also been having a great time playing around with AI game making experiments.  I'm still amazed it can make 3D models that look pretty decent, even if they are rough around the edges.  We have our trip to Massachusetts booked and I've got my camping trip with coworkers increasingly sorted out.  Still need to book a room and figure out my Sunday/Monday itinerary.

Makin' Games

June 29, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I seem to spend a big chunk of my time playing around with AI to see what I can get it to do.  Last week I discovered some pretty good systems to take images and turn them into 3D models.  It's rough around the edges, with some turning out better than others, but it's really impressive that it can do it at all.  I remember back in my Neverwinter Nights days how we modders would dream longingly for the day we can ask the computer to make a dungeon for us and give it a particular theme, and it would spit out all the creatures, structures, and so on.

It turns out we're quickly getting to that point.  I'll tell copilot to generate 2D images that fit the theme of the dungeon, pick the ones I want, and then have it generate 3D models for me.  Now I'm working on a full computer roleplaying game around the idea, making dungeon tiles and miniatures to move around the boards.  It's based on the open source Basic Fantasy rules, so it's very old school similar to early D&D.  We'll see if I turn this into something more real, but it's been a blast to play with.

Mocha Friday

June 26, 2026 by Adam in Family

It's been another week in this strange AI future we live in.  I watched a time-loop/AI-apocalypse movie called Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die which was a funny satire of our modern age.  It wasn't the Godfather, but it was fun to run on the treadmill with.

I keep playing around with AI, trying to see what I can get out of my old video card to run my AI models on my personal computer.  Quite a lot, it turns out.  I was generating some decent text-to-speech audio that didn't sound too flat and robotic.  Last night I got it to make some good looking 3D models from 2D images.  I'm playing around with the idea for an old school dungeon crawl.  Let's see if it turns into something real.

I think the farm house has sewer, water, and electric at this point.  The floors are in and hopefully we can get the loan sorted out fairly soon.  Painters should be doing their thing soon and hopefully we have the green light for deck building.  The last vague thing is the retaining wall and landscaping, though fortunately that can be put off a little longer.  I'm hoping to get out there to take a look this afternoon.

I'm slowly organizing my vacations, with the one to Washington coming up pretty soon.  I've got the Power BI camping trip with coworkers and some friend hang time.  We'll see if I can manage to get into the office and check out the campus.

As for the weekend, I'd love to dig into some house projects.  Fixing the dining room light is the top priority, followed by mowing and bench repair.  Not sure I can manage everything but we'll see how far I get.

Solstice Weekend

June 22, 2026 by Adam in Family

It was a full weekend, with lots of things going on.

Saturday was our anniversary - Jo and I went kayaking at the millrace and later went out for dinner at a fancy Mediterranian place.  Sunday was Father's Day and the BBQ at Jenny's.  Rod's family was there, so it was full of new people and a cute little kid that everyone doted on.  It was nice seeing everyone and catching up.  I also managed a couple calls with Emma and Yvonne, catching up on their lives and hopefully getting an August trip a little more organized.

In between all the things I managed some fun and practical things.  The front concrete wall was scraped and painted after the concrete patching the week before.  I've started printing and painting minis for some upcoming D&D sessions.  I played some more Slay the Spire 2 and Resident Evil 4.  

Now it's back to work.  I've got a couple more hours of being on call and a few alerts I need to investigate.  Hopefully I can get back to my feature and cool little side project one of these days.  We'll see how it goes.

Mocha Friday

June 19, 2026 by Adam in Family

I just finished my last sip of that delicious elixir.  Work is distracting me from truly enjoying my mocha today.  Fortunately it's a "Day of Learning" which theoretically means putting my work aside.  I'm still on call but hopefully it's not too bad today.

The week has mostly been okay.  It started with a lot of back-and-forth with bankers and contractors to try to get through the last push with the house.  I think we're generally on track though there were a few panicked surprises along the way.

I keep playing around with AI tools for my assorted nerdy pursuits.  There are some surprisingly good tools for text-to-speech locally and I'm thinking about using that for my Cthulhu Nancy Drew game.  I've also been going a little crazy with images for D&D.  The latest is a recap slideshow - they used magic to ice some stairs, then lured monsters to slide down to be easily dispatched.  Seeing it in action the week after will hopefully be a treat.

Tomorrow is our anniversary - I think we'll break out the kayaks and have a picnic.  Sunday is the BBQ at Jenny's - it'll be great to see everyone.

Impossible Landscapes

June 16, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

The Delta Green agents got together last night for another Impossible Landscapes campaign session.  They'd just escaped from the surreal Night Floors (similar to the Backrooms), staggering around trying to figure out what to do next.  The stumbled into a mysterious bookstore that appeared outside, finding all manner of odd books that they immediately wanted to read.  My favorite was the King in Yellow play that Emma and I made months ago by hand.  It was cool to finally see the players get into it - Jordan was reading it and explaining how everything was connected with metaphors and symbology.  It was a great time.

Heatwave Monday

June 15, 2026 by Adam in Family

It's supposed to get to 95 today, putting my shed's new air conditioner to the test.  While it should absolutely keep the shed cool, I'm hoping it does it quietly enough that I can have meetings and such.  In the past I've had to turn off the A/C and sweat through afternoon meetings, which isn't my favorite.

I'm on call this week, strangely excited to try out some of the new AI assistance tools that people have built since the last time I was on call.  It's wild how quickly things are changing - every time I'm on call there are new ways of doing things.  I also feel way better after my cold last week, which has greatly improved my spirits.

It was a pretty quiet weekend, a mix of hanging out and house projects.  Saturday I picked up some supplies at a hardware store and then visited with my oldest son for a couple hours.  It was cool seeing his new place, which is in a nice neighborhood and well decorated.  He was already cool, but his girlfriend's decorating tastes takes it to a new level.  Mostly we talked about his job and side business and trying to advance his career, but his life sounds pretty good despite working all the time.

Sunday I patched the concrete wall outside our house and listened to The Blade Itself, satisfying my need to do something practical.  I also played way too much Slay the Spire 2 among other things.  I also worked on my Delta Green and D&D prep web sites.  I've got Delta Green tonight and D&D tomorrow, but feel pretty well prepared.  Lots of new images for the D&D crowd, so they should be in for a treat.

Healthy Mocha Friday

June 12, 2026 by Adam in Family

I'm grateful my cold is gone, with only the faintest hint that it was once there.  I'm just starting to realize just how not-my-best I've been the last week or so.  I've got some work projects I need to slow down and redo a little.  My AI agents are super productive, but sometimes get way off track and I missed a few things along the way.

The farm house project is stressing me out as we get to the final stretch.  Lots of tight deadlines and payments that need to be made, loans that need to be quickly obtained, and parts of the project that I don't know what's happening.  I need to reach out to my sisters for help so I don't go off the deep end.  Hopefully today I can get together with mom and get some checks written.

It's been an eventful week.  I chatted with Yvonne for a little - she's learning to drive and has a job as an instructional assistant for an EMT program at a local college.  I think she's enjoying living and working on her dad's farm - she even has a favorite chicken.

Duncan's done with school for the year and had his capstone presentation with his fellow classmates.  There were some really good video presentations.  Duncan did his typically awesome Minecraft themed one, but was also involved with a bunch of other projects that were also cool to see.

I'm hoping to see my oldest son on Saturday night after he gets off work.  I haven't seen his new place yet and just want to hang out for a little and catch up.  Emma's working away at the farm, finding new places to be sore and get sunburned.  Hopefully this builds all the character she'll need for the years ahead.

As for me, I'd love to dig into the endless house projects.  I've got Delta Green and D&D next week in the evenings, so a little prep might be helpful.  We'll see how it goes.

Spacy Monday

June 08, 2026 by Adam in Family

I'm still sick, sniffling away on a Monday morning.  I took some Dayquil to keep my cough at bay, but it still makes me a little spacy so I'm drifting through the morning and sucking down coffee.  Fortunately I don't need to drive anywhere.

I'd like to say that I was vaguely productive over the weekend, but the most exciting thing we did was taking Duncan to see the Backrooms movie.  He loved it, and apparently knew the source material well enough to recogize a bunch of locations in the movie.  I enjoyed it, and thought it would have made a good Delta Green mission.

As for the rest of my time, I ended up playing the Resident Evil 4 remake, more Pathfinder: Wraith of the Righteous, and played around with AI games and D&D prep.  I made a big push for a new game involving flying a cargo ship around the moons of Jupiter.  I tried to get the AI to make a system where it could handle the orbital mechanics of flying a nuclear electric rocket from moon to moon and it mostly succeeded.  It turns out rocket science is hard, even for AI.

Jo did most of the hard work this weekend - basement plumbing, cleaning part of the house for some test paint colors, and the usual garden harvesting.  The most I could manage was cooking my usual breakfasts and keeping the laundry flowing.

Well, time to see if I can work today.  It's a good thing I can just give vague instructions to agents and keep them going in the right general direction.